(1) Field of the Invention
Ice cream product or produce containers, including combination of container body and closure member, blanks from which such container body may be erected, such containers erected and filled with ice cream product and closed with such closure member; such containers partially erected in the form of a tube open at both ends, closed at one end by bottom-forming members, or closed at one end by said closure member; method of closing such containers by means of closure members particularly adapted for such purpose. Also, such containers which may be readily constructed of inexpensive sheetform materials such as paperboard and such closure members which may be readily constructed from plastic materials, and the combination of which container and closure member has numerous advantages which will appear from the following. Methods of packaging ice cream product or produce.
(2) Prior Art
Ice cream products, including sherbets, milk ice, ices, and related products, have long been packaged in containers of various types and sizes, including numerous forms and shapes of paperboard and, rather recently, tub-type cylindrical cartons of the type historically employed for cottage cheese and the like, with a single paperboard sheet closing the upper circular area thereof. Although such latter types of containers are structurally sound, they are extremely expensive and do not solve the problems of vapor-transfer or stability once opened. Moreover, they are bulky and spacewasting at all marketing and consumer levels. Existing ice-cream carton structures, with or without tearstrips, are likewise characterized by numerous shortcomings, not the least of which is the expense, due to the relatively high caliper of paperboard which must be employed. In addition, since these are all made of integral blanks, any cover member must of necessity be hinged from the bottom or carton body along the edge of the rear wall of the carton body, which makes it impossible to provide any substantial friction between the carton cover and the carton body along the front wall. In addition, even when higher caliper sheet-form material is employed of the paperboard type, once a carton is opened, moisture vapor and fluid content of the carton penetrate the raw edge of the carton body, with the result that the carton takes on a shabby and inelegant appearance and, moreover, produces less and less of a barrier to the outside atmosphere as the penetration into the raw edge of the paperboard increases and deterioration and leakage progresses. Moveover, even with higher caliper board, due to usual pressures occurring in storage and in use, the carton body does not remain stable and, even under normal conditions of use, frequently assumes a flimsy, bowed, nonsupportive and grossly inelegant condition.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide an ice cream product container with complementary container closure member which is as elegant in appearance as the classic cylindrical containers, but which is not subject to any of the foregoing disadvantages, including economic disadvantages, thereof. In addition, it is an object of the invention to provide an ice cream product container constructed from an integral blank, and a cover formed from plastic, and combination thereof by securement of the closure member to the container body in such a manner and according to such a structure whereby all of the aforementioned disadvantages of prior art paperboard ice cream carton structures are genuinely avoided and a novel, unique, and and elegant type of ice cream product container thereby provided.